Overhead door



Nov. 2, 1937. o. c. JOHNSON OVERHEAD DOOR Filed Dec. 3, 1936 INVEI|:IORV/1. 1. E (Joy/wolf 06%; 01M

ATTORNEY.

Patented Nov. 2, 1937 UNITED STATES ares PATENT 4 Claims.

My invention pertains to simple collapsible door means provided withimproved remote manually operated controls therefor; particularly asapplied to a counter-balanced overhead door for 5 'garages or the likesmaller closure needs without requiring the installation of guidetracks. Such sectionalized door preferably comprises a pair of pivotallyinterconnected panels of which the lower panel is foldab-le toward theupper panel, one edge of the latter panel being hingedly suspended fromthe doorway lintel to allow of freely swinging the closed door away fromits jambs into opened position, and vice versa. One end of a singlemanipulative pull cord or cable is attached to the lower panel and theother cord end is herein equipped with a depending grip agency or handhold located exteriorly beyond the doorway and which suspended hand holdallows a driver to actuate said door while 20 remaining seated in anautomotive vehicle.

The present remote control is so arranged that an adroit downward pullapplied upon said hand hold by such driver will cause mycounter-balanced door to be quickly opened, the upward momentum impartedto the swinging door being sufficient to carry through into its fullyraised or relatively folded position. By virtue of a novel pulleysystem, my centralized hand hold is made to automatically return intoits initial uppermost position during the latter half of such dooropening movement. When a similar downward jerk is subsequently exertedupon such returned hand hold, the door may be closed in a like manner,the downward momentum being then relied upon to carry the panels onwardagainst their jambs. Prior to reaching full door closure, the hand holdwill again be replaced into its uppermost position and prepared tosubject the door to another opening movement. The vertical hand holdtravel required to bring about the cited functions is purposely keptcomparatively short so as to fall within a convenient reach range or armstroke of a seated car driver.

The primary object of my invention is to provide for an overhead doorstructure of the character indicated, particularly one adapted to beopened or closed from a single distant hand hold or the like operativepull means that can conr veniently be actuated by a seated driverwithout being obliged to step out of his car in inclement weather toeither open or close such door and in which the raised panels will beautomatically upheld w hen reaching their fully opened position.Disclosed herein are also other novel features *of structure includingthe use of a door opening spring, counterbalancing means, together witha door latching mechanism that is releasably associated with my pullcord, all of which aspects will .,hereinafter be more explicitly setforth. Reference' is bad to the accompanying" one sheet of drawingswhich are illustrative of a preferred embodiment as applied to a garagedoor, and in which:

Fig. 1 illustrates an elevational view of a closed overhead doorassembly as seen from the inside of the doorway.

Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view along 22 of Fig. 1 with the linked doorpanels raised into their open position.

Fig. 3 represents a view along 33 of Fig. 1 to show the relativeposition of the unlatched panels upon leaving the door jambs.

Referring now in detail to said assembly, this comprises a pair ofinteriorly rabbeted door jambs iii and ii that are erected upon a silli2 and subtended by a suitable deck beam or lintel l3. My overhead doorpreferably includes an upper panel l5 and a mated lower panel ill ofwhich adjoining edges are linked by the use of exteri'orly disposedhinges such as El. The free upper panel edge may be suspended from thelintel by interiorly disposed hinges such as l8. For present purposes,both panels are intended to be accurately hung in such doorway and thehinges aligned to work with a minimum of frictional drag.

My door may be substantially counterbalanced in any suitable manner, forinstance by the use of an adjustable drop weight l9 carried by companioncables such as 28 and 2! which respectively run over the pulleys 22 and23 for attachment to opposite bottom edge regions of the lower panel 16,preferably to the overhanging pintles of reversely mounted guide rollerssuch as it, which respectively run on separate metal strips IBA and HAdisposed alongside the rabbeted jambs.

As a structural refinement, the interior surface of my door may beprovided with oppositely disposed latches such as 25 and 25. Theretractable tongues thereof may be rod interconnected to a commonequalizer lever 26 whose centralized trunnion extends through the lowerpanel and may be provided with duplex actuating handles such as 21 thatpermit of selective manual operation from either panel side. If desired,the exterior handle may be equipped with a key lock.

Said equalizer lever cooperates with the roller guided cable 28 which isalso attached to a horizontal lever bar 29 disposed interiorly insubstantial parallelism with the bottom edge of the lower panel. Thisbalanced baris medially fulcrumed at 3B and its outwardly extended leverend 29A overlies the inner face of the jamb i i. A return tension spring3| normally thrusts said bar away from the stop lug 32. Whenever thelever end 29A is lifted, the resulting pull uponthe guided cable 28stretches the spring 35 and brings about a simultaneous release of theplural door latches 24 and 25 from beneath their respective J'amb stripsIDA and MB.

The remote control means whereby my door may be opened or closed from adistance, resides in the use of a single chain, cord orpliant pull cable34 of which one end is preferably but not necessarily secured to thelever end 29A. Said cable is then carried over the upper guide pulley 35and outwardly to the garage exterior as shown, without requiringinordinate head room above my doorway lintel. As a protective cablehousing, I may resort to an elevated horizontal pipe section 36 thatextends some distance forwardly of the doorway and whose overhanging endmay be supported by a stanchion 37. The interconnecting elbow fitting 38may be equipped with a housing pulley 39 over which is run the remoteend of the cable 34. A suspended hand hold 46 is fastened to a dependingend of said cable and this grip agency is sufficiently weighted to keepthe cable taut.

Assuming the door to be closed as in Fig. 1, then by pulling down uponthe grip til, the door may be raised into its opened Fig. 2 position. Insuch event, said 'hand hold would drop closely contiguous to the silllevel and hence would not remain within convenient reach of a seated cardriver.

In order to obviate such inherently long travel on part of the hand holdand togain other advantages, the present cable gear is made to operatein an improved manner by the use of an intermediate or cable reversingpulley M of which the cable receiving groove may lie in a substantiallycoplanar relation to the doorway. The spindle thereof may be carried bythe jamb H about midway of its effective length, said reversing pulleybeing interposed between the lever 23 and the upper guide pulley 35 inthe Fig. 1 mam her. A pulley guard 32 maintains operative engagementwith the pulley it should the cable become inadvertently slackened,'itbeing pointed out that in my system, the cable 34 is solely wrappedabout said pulley while the lower door panel is impelled toward itsfully raised position.

By virtue of such reversing pulley, the travel of the hand hold 40 isconfined between its fulllined u per position and the lowermost dottedposition 43, respectively arranged to fall within convenient reach of aseated driver when his car is stopped in properlocation just beyond theentrance to the garage doorway. The fully counterbalanced door beingmounted to freely turn about its hinge mountings, a steady vigorous jerkor prolonged yank exerted downwardly upon said raised hand hold, willinitially unlatch the closed door and start to fold the panels towardtheir collapsed opened position.

7 It has been found that by skillful manipulation, a moderately sizedgarage door possessing a proper weight distribution may readily beimpelled and thereby incite suificient momentum in the moving parts toneatly carry such swinging door into its fully opened position. Thelocation of my reversing pulley M is such that the onward door swingwill cause the cable 3 5 to partially loop itself around said pulley inthe Figure 2 manner, which in turn brings about a raising of the hand'hold and finally lifts the same into its uppermost position when thedoor has been fully opened. A dexterous manipulation of the presentinstrumentalities calls for a timely release of the hand hold somewhatprior to reaching its clotted reverse position 40', which allows theaccumulated momentum to unimpededly carry the door upwardly as intended.when opened, the folded lower panel l6 lies directly beneath the upperpanel 55, the door sections then being relatively inclined and having anacute angle therebetween of which the hinge pintle l'l forms its apex.The door is automatically retained in such open position because of anormal thrust component imposed upon the strip I M by the guide rollerl4. As herein arranged, a deliberate downward panel pull exerted by thecable 34 serves to initiate a door closure movement.

In order to facilitate the opening of my aligned door panels, it ispreferred to work with a comparatively long starting spring 43. Therespective spring ends may be attached between a stationary roof prop Mand the upper panel, as in Fig. 3. The purpose of such inclined springis to relatively tilt the linked panels out of alignment immediatelyafter the door latches have been released, which affords an adequateleverage on part of the pull in the cable 34 to unobstructedly startfolding the panels.

After having been fully opened, the door may be closed by againsimilarly jerking downwardly upon the now raised hand hold, as will beevident from the Fig. 2 assembly. The lever bar end 29A will then lie inan elevated relation to the reversing pulley 4| so that the resultingsustained downward pull exerted upon the door end of the attached cable3 5 will bring about a positive drop in both panels and again set up therequired momentum in the falling door to carry these parts onwardlyagainst the jamb as in Fig. l. The initial drop of the panel l6 carriesthe lever end 29A and its associated pull cable end toward the reversingpulley l after said cable end descends below such pulley, the hand holdwill lift toward its topmost position.

A proper door closing impulse suffices to automatically engage thelatches and at the same time restore the original tension in thestarting spring 33. The fully closed door may be kept locked by thehandle key. While unlocked, such door may either be opened by the handhold 48 or be manually shifted between its extreme positions by directlytaking hold of the lower door panel.

To recapitulate, in the present exemplification the linked panels aredesigned to swing inwardly of the doorway and my centralized hand holdis carried into its topmost position both when the door is open orclosed, and hence kept ready to actuate the panels bythe exertion of adownward pull thereon. Should it be desired to close the door, such pullfirst releases the latch whereupon the starting spring initiates arelative tilt between the linked panels which are then carried intotheir respective collapsed or open posi tion. A successive pull carriesthe door into closure position where it is automatically latched againstbeing opened by windage or th lik The use of but a single door actuatingcable attached solely to the lower panel l6, obviates operativeconfusion as compared to conventional long travel, twin ropes that arerespectively connected to a pair of foldable door panels.

It will be observed that the cable 34 is not fixedly fastened to theperimeter of the reversing pulley 4|, instead my cable only becomeslooped around said pulley when the foldable lowers l is substantiallyraised toward its open position. To initiate the action hereincontemplated, the swinging bottom edge of the opened lower panel H5 ismade to carry its attached cable end upwardly therewith into an extremeraised position located directly above such pulley, an intermediatecable downwardly, which in turn carries both panels against the doorjamb.

By opening the panels inwardly of the doorway, the upturned panel willnot become loaded in the event the door should be left open during aheavy snow fall. It is thought the foregoing disclosure: will makeevident to those skilled in this art, the advantages afforded by myimproved overhead door devices, it being understood that I reserve theright to incorporate equivalent door actuating means in my illustrativeembodiment and that certain. of the structural features need notnecessarily be combined with others, all without departing from thespirit and scope of my invention heretofore described and moreparticularly defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In combination with a doorway including complementary jambs and abridging lintel, an overhead door closing said doorway and comprisinglinked upper and lower panels having a free marginal upper panel edgehingedly suspended from the lintel to allow of unobstructedly swingingthe respective panels away from said jambs into a relatively folded openposition, counterbalancing means cooperating with said door, a guidepulley located contiguous to the lintel, a single cable for manuallyactuating said door in opposed swing directions, said cable having oneend attached to the bottom edge region of the lower panel and being runover said guide pulley for manipulation at the other cable end, and areversing pulley interposed between said guide pulley and the sill levelof said doorway, said door when swung into its fully opened positionserving to carry the attached cable end therewith to initiate a loop ina medial cable portion about said reversing pulley prior to reachingsuch open position and which bottom edge of the lower panel is broughtcontiguous to said free marginal upper panel edge whereby to uphold thefolded panels in stabilized non-dropping relationship with respect tothe door sill.

2. In combination with a doorway including complementary jambs and abridging lintel, an overhead door closing said doorway and comprisinglinked upper and lower panels having a free marginal upper panel edgehingedly suspended from the lintel to allow of unobstructedly swingingthe respective panels away from said jambs into a relatively folded openposition, counterbalancing means cooperating with said door, a guidepulley located contiguous to the lintel and disposed to rotate about anaxis lying in substantial parallelism with the plane of said doorway, asingle cable for manually actuating said door in opposed swingdirections, said cable having one end attached contiguous to the bottomedge region of the lower panel and thence run over said guide pulley toextend forwardly of the doorway entrance, the other cable end beingupheld and having a depending terminal arranged to shiftably suspend agrip agency thereon, and a reversing pulley of which the spindle extendsin a substantially perpendicular relation to the aforesaid axis and islocated intermediate said guide pulley and the sill level of thedoorway, said grip agency being lowered from a certain initial elevationwith respect to the sill level and returned thereto when the door isswung between its respective extreme positions and which bottom edge ofthe: lower panel thrusts against the jambs in stabilized relation touphold the door panels in their folded open position.

3. In combination with a doorway including complementary jambs and abridging lintel, an overhead door closing said doorway and comprisinglinked upper and lower panels having a free marginal upper panel edgehingedly suspended from the lintel to allow of unobstructedly swingingthe respective panels away from said jambs into a relatively folded openposition, counterbalancing means cooperating with said door, a guidepulley located contiguous to the lintel, a single manipulative cableactuating said door, said cable having one end attached to the bottomedge region of the lower panel and thence carried over said guidepulley, the other cable end providing for a shiftably guided dependinggripable length by which to releasably yank the cable longitudinally ina direction away from its attached end through a finite stroke having aninner and an outer terminal region respectively located at differentelevations from the sill level of the doorway, and a reversing pulleylocated intermediate the guide pulley and said sill level, saidgrippable length when jerked downwardly serving to initiate a doormovement that stores sufficient momentum in the swinging door to impelitself onward and which grippable length upon being released whenreaching its outer terminal region allows the impelled door tounimpededly continue toward its open position wherein the bottom edge ofthe lower panel thrusts normally against said jambs to automaticallyuphold the folded panels with respect to the door sill.

4. In combination with a doorway including complementary jambs and abridging lintel, an overhead door closing flatwise against said jambsand comprising linked upper and lower panels having a free marginalupper panel edge hingedly suspended from the lintel to allow ofunobstructedly swinging the respective aligned panels away from saidjambs into a relatively collapsed position, counterbalancing meanscooperating with said door, a guide pulley located contiguous to thelintel, a reversing pulley located between said guide pulley and thesill level of the doorway, a single manipulative cable for actuatingsaid door in opposed directions, said cable having one end attachedsolely to the bottom edge region of the lower panel and being extendedover said guide pulley with the other end of said cable providing for alongitudinally shiftable grip length by which to jerk the cable in adirection away from its attached end through a finite stroke and whichcable when jerked initiates a door movement that stores sufiicientmomentum in the swinging door to impel itself onward into one of itsextreme swing positions wherein the panels are relatively collapsed andautomatically upheld with respect to the doorway sill, said grip lengthbeing released when reaching its outer stroke end to allow the impelleddoor to unimpededly continue on.- ward into said one extreme positionand which grip length is returned into its inner stroke end when thedoor reaches its closure position.

ORVILLE C. JOHNSON.

